Poet, editor, and educator Ciona Rouse is the author of Vantablack, the first chapbook of Third Man Books (2017). Her poetry has appeared in the journals Oxford American, Wildness, Booth, The Account, Still, Talking River, Gabby Journal, Matter: a journal of political poetry and commentary and other publications. She has been featured on Poets.org’s Poem-A-Day and has work selected by Ada Limón for the podcast The Slowdown.

Recognizing the kindred nature of the arts, she often collaborates with other poets and artists. In 2017-2018, she served as a resident poet for the Nick Cave: FEAT exhibition at Frist Art Museum, culminating in a poem called “We,” which was named 2018’s “Best Poetry Performance” by Nashville Scene. Since 2021, she has been a guest co-curator for Kara Walker: Cut to the Quick from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation at Frist Art Museum, Cincinnati Art Museum and Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art.

Rouse has been a visiting writer-in-residence at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., and The University of the South Sewanee in Sewanee, Tenn., as well as on the faculty at the Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference and The Tennessee Young Writers Workshop. Her poetry was featured on NPR Music in collaboration with musician and poet Adia Victoria and poet Caroline Randall Williams in August 2019. A graduate of Columbia College of South Carolina, Rouse currently lives in Nashville.